Mihailo Maksimović also Mihajlo Maksimović (Serbian: Михаило Максимовић; c. 1745 - after 1792) was a Serbian satirist, professor, translator, and writer. He was very familiar with the life and work of

Dositej Obradović Dositej Obradović ( sr-Cyrl, Доситеј Обрадовић; 17 February 1739 – 7 April 1811) was a Serbian writer, biographer, diarist, philosopher, pedagogue, educational reformer, linguist, polyglot and the first minister of education ...

Biography

He is one of the least known literary figures in Serbia whose biography is incomplete. There is no sure date of his birth or death and the chronological happenings that occurred in his lifetime have yet to be put in sequence. His contemporaries were

Jovan Rajić Jovan Rajić ( sr-cyr, Јован Рајић; September 21, 1726 – December 22, 1801) was a Serbian writer, historian, theologian, and pedagogue, considered one of the greatest Serbian academics of the 18th century. He was one of the most nota ...

Pavle Solarić Pavle Solarić (7 August 1779 – 18 January 1821) was a Serbian linguist, geographer, archaeologist, poet, bibliographer and man of letters. He was one of Dositej Obradović's early students and an ardent disciple. Biography Solarić was born in ...

Stefan von Novaković Stefan von Novaković (Osijek, Habsburg monarchy, c. 1740 – Osijek, Habsburg Monarchy, 1826) was a Serbian writer and publisher of Serbian books in Vienna and patron of Serbian literature. Biography Novaković, a well-educated lawyer who lived a ...

Arsenije Sečujac Arsenije Sečujac ( sr-cyr, Арсеније Сечујац, german: Arsenius Feiherr Seczujacz von Heldenfeld; 1720 – 13 January 1814) was a Habsburg general who earned the rank of major general at the very end of his military career and was awa ...

and others. As a teacher, he lived and worked in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

for a time and was also employed in the Illyrian Court Chancellery (''dvorske ilirske kancelarije'') as its secretary. Maksimović wrote his satires in a series of articles under the title ''Mali bukvar za veliku decu'' ("Little premier for grown-up children") in the language of the common people instead of the antiquated

Slavonic-Serbian Slavonic-Serbian (славяносербскій, ''slavjanoserbskij''), Slavo-Serbian, or Slaveno-Serbian (славено-сербскiй, ''slaveno-serbskij''; sr, славеносрпски''/slavenosrpski'') was a literary language used by ...

. His articles, printed in Serbian newspapers, were later compiled and published as a book in Vienna in 1792 under the same title. We know he was a professor because he was moved so many times to new posts. That happened because he was opposed to the Roman Catholic Church's dominance of secular concerns, especially education. He was forced to spend the rest of his life in minor posts distant from Vienna (such as

Petrovaradin Petrovaradin ( sr-cyr, Петроварадин, ) is a historic town in the Serbian province of Vojvodina, now a part of the city of Novi Sad. As of 2011, the urban area has 14,810 inhabitants. Lying on the right bank of the Danube, across from t ...

and other such places that were considered remote in the

Habsburg Empire The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...

), like many others in the decade following the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

he became quite reactionary in line with the shifts that saw most of the Austrian Emperor Joseph's reforms of the 1780s retracted before he died.

Literary work

Not surprisingly, the great age of satire in Serbian literature dates from the eighteenth century and comes from the pen of Mihailo Maksimović who put into common Serbian ''Čto je papa?'' (''Was ist der Papst?'' or "Who is the Pope?") in 1784 that gleans the works of

François-Antoine Devaux François-Antoine Devaux (12 December 1712, in Lunéville – 11 April 1796, or 22 germinal year IV, Lunéville) was a Lorraine (and, after 1766, French) poet and man of letters. He was called ''Panpan'' by his friends. Life Devaux trained as a l ...

's (1712–1796) on reclaiming of lands and the Austrian Febronianist pamphleteer Joseph Valentin Eybel's relentless and scurrilous attacks on the Roman Curia, namely the Pope. In 1792, Mihailo Maksimović's ''Mali bukvar za veliku decu'' (Small Primer for Grown-up Children) was published as the first satirical book of modern Serbian literature.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Maksimović, Mihailo 1745 births Date of death unknown Serbian satirists 18th-century Serbian writers Serbian translators